


A Good Soldier

by Einsof



Series: A Good Solution [1]
Category: Xenoblade Chronicles
Genre: Corporal Punishment, Domestic Discipline, Dominance, M/M, No Aftercare, Spanking, Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 02:30:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6835375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Einsof/pseuds/Einsof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a near disaster on their way through Tephra Cave, Reyn tries to help a despondent Shulk think like a soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Soldier

After so long in the damp dark of Tephra cave, the warm, dry wind blowing south off the Gaur plain and howling through the pass was a relief, a benediction, blowing away the lingering dust, cobwebs, and gloom. Or, it should have been so. It seemed to be for Reyn. He’d stumbled out of the cave into the waning daylight, bellowed his relief to the sky, then rolled around in the tall grass for a little while, like a heavily armoured puppy. He was frustrated – Shulk knew that much for a fact – but he wasn’t going to let it get in the way of his good time, not at that moment any. It was something about Reyn that Shulk really envied sometimes.

Neither of them had particularly wanted to continue on to Colony 6 after leaving the cave. It had taken them nearly two days to move up the Bionis’ leg to the knee, and they’d have both been exhausted and ready for a rest even if their adventure in the cave hadn’t been so harrowing. Without either of them really pausing to discuss it, they’d both started setting up camp together just outside the cave entrance, quietly. It had been fully dark by the time Reyn got the fire going, and by then Shulk could see that his pleasure at being out of the cave finally had dissipated, and he was back to being angry.

Everything that had happened in the cave had happened too fast to be thought about or processed at the time. After Shulk had rescued Reyn from the queen, they’d both been too excited and too relieved to consider that Reyn had nearly died, and in no small part because Shulk hadn’t told him about his vision. Everything had come out all right in the end, and that was grand, of course, but…

Shulk had felt his stomach start to sink deeper and deeper the higher they climbed on the way out, and the wind off the plains didn’t do anything to improve his mood. Worse, he could tell – from the set of Reyn’s broad shoulders, and the quality of the silence between them – that Reyn had also started to realize what a close call it had been, and _why_ it had been a close call. He was angry, and that was fair enough.

So, as soon as they’d finished pitching their camp and Reyn had a fire blazing away, Shulk had made excuses to spend some time alone rather than sit in the sad, angry quiet. Sticking the Monado point-first into the ground next to the fire, he’d grabbed Reyn’s guarder from him – practically yanked it from him, honestly – declared that he needed to check the hinge mechanism, and more or less bolted from the camp with it.

The moon came out from behind the Bionis’ head as Shulk crossed the plateau, leaving the camp behind, and it bathed the area outside the cave’s exit in a comforting, blue light. Heading straight away from the entrance and the silence of the camp, Shulk made his way to the cliff’s edge and sat down there, guarder next to him in the tall grass, feet dangling off the edge, just the expanse in front of him. The moon’s reflection shimmered on the ocean, miles below, and by leaning forward and straining his eyes, Shulk fancied that he could make out the faint, shimmering lights of Colony 9 far, far, far below him. To be fair, it could just have been the stars shining on the surface of the water, but thinking it was home was a little bit comforting. Imagining that he saw the Colony from so far away, he could pretend nothing had happened - that the Colony wasn’t in ruins, that Fiora wasn’t gone, that Reyn hadn’t nearly been killed because Shulk hadn’t told him about his vision.

It wasn’t really in Shulk’s nature to cry - even at times, like now, that he felt like he might want to. The tears didn’t come. Maybe from pain, sure, but rarely from an excess of emotion. Dickson had joked with him once that his tear-ducts must have frozen shut up on the mountain, and the comment had stung Shulk enough that he remembered it every time he felt like he ought to cry but couldn’t. He picked up the guarder, flipped the hinge open, and set it on his lap, checking each mechanism for wear and noting which joints would need lubrication sooner rather than later.

Crying wasn’t productive. That was why, Shulk told himself, he didn’t do it often. It wasn’t for lack of feeling. It’s just that it wasn’t productive. Crying was always a response to something, and responses were important. There was always something, Shulk told himself, more productive to respond with than tears. It wasn’t a good use of time or energy, when both could be better spent thinking up something more constructive to do.

He hadn’t even cried for Fiora. Truth be told, he probably wouldn’t have cried for Reyn. Not because he didn’t care about them both, a lot, it was just that they deserved better from him, more than tears. They were the most important people in his life. Shulk was a fixer and a maker of things, so he shouldn’t spend his time crying, he should spend his time fixing. Making solutions. Being productive. Solving one problem after another. Solve enough problems and you make things better. Tears dried, but a good solution was forever.

Shulk sighed. The guarder was fine, in perfect working order. It would need maintenance before long, but Reyn took good care of his gear, a soldier’s care, and if his weapon failed in combat it wouldn’t be because Reyn hadn’t been paying attention to what it needed. Reyn had never shown any interest in how the weapon was made or the principles that operated it - those things couldn’t have meant less to him. He was pragmatic that way. All he’d cared about was how to get it to do the things he needed it to do. That was why Reyn was a soldier. That was why Shulk usually stayed in the lab.

 _I_ _’_ _m not cut out for this_. The thought crept unbidden into his head. _I_ _’_ _m not a soldier, I_ _’_ _m a scientist. The Monado deserves better._ Fiora _deserves better._ He paused and sighed. _So does Reyn._ He stared out at the endless, dark sea, and wondered if someone else would be crying. _Let_ _’_ _s be honest_ , he told himself. _Everyone deserves better than me._

“Hey.” Reyn’s voice startled Shulk out of his musing, and he looked up from his lap as Reyn thumped down into the grass next to him, letting his legs dangle too. “How’s she looking?” For a second, still startled by Reyn’s sudden arrival, Shulk stared at him blankly. “The guarder,” Reyn prompted.

“Oh! Oh.” Shulk hurriedly snapped the weapon closed and offered it to Reyn, who took it without looking at it. “It’s fine. She’s fine. You take good care of it.”

Shulk realized he must have been really lost in his own head to not hear Reyn coming. Reyn wasn’t exactly light on his feet, even out of his armour as he was now. In just his shirtsleeves and his trousers, he was still an imposing specimen, tall and broad and solid. Now and then in the past, Reyn had tried to tease Shulk about their different heights; Reyn towered a good head and a half over Shulk. It had never struck a nerve with Shulk, though. He’d always found Reyn’s presence comforting and reassuring.

Reyn smiled a little as Shulk passed him the guarder, but didn’t reply. Instead, setting the guarder down next to him, Reyn leaned back, resting his weight on his elbows, and watched the moon for a bit while Shulk stared down at the water. Companionable silences were nothing new to the two of them. One of the things Shulk had always appreciated about Reyn was the way Reyn tried – and sometimes succeeded – to respect his love of contemplative silences. But this was different, really different, and really not to Shulk’s taste. The wind whispered through the tall grass all around them and Shulk wished he could think of something to say, some way to solve the tension hanging in the air between them.

“Do you think those lights are Colony 9?” he asked into the still night air, and the question sounded stupid to him immediately, forced, awkward, a broken olive branch. But once he’d started talking he discovered he was having trouble stopping. “I’ve been trying to tell if it’s Colony 9 or not, but it’s too dark to be sure, and the cave was so disorienting, but I think it might-“

“Shulk,” Reyn interrupted, still staring at the moon. “We need to talk.”

Shulk sighed, nodded his head, closed his eyes. He wasn’t relishing being shouted at, but it was a solution, anyway. Reyn would feel better, Shulk himself would probably feel better, and anyhow, he knew what _not_ to do if – when – another situation like this cropped up. Just talk about it. And that was a solution, too. So if this got them past what had happened in the cave, fine. He could be shouted at. Probably deserved it. “I understand.”

“No,” Reyn said suddenly, emphatically, and in spite of the fact that Shulk had expected Reyn’s anger, he still found its sudden onset startling. His eyes opened and he turned to look at Reyn in startled surprise. “No, you _don_ _’t_ , Shulk,” Reyn told him, thumping one big fist on the ground between them. “You don’t understand anything, and that’s the problem.”

Shulk had to school his expression carefully to keep the hurt out of his eyes and his voice. Reyn might have started in on him earlier and harder than he’d expected, but this was the solution, after all. It wouldn’t do to be too emotional, even if Reyn’s words _had_ stung him, more deeply than he’d expected. “I see,” he replied, choosing his words carefully, keeping his tone neutral, open, curious. _Let it run its course_. “Why don’t you tell me about what I don’t understand?” _Did that sound passive aggressive? Challenging? Would Reyn take it that way?_ He hadn’t been expecting, a few seconds before, to be so deep into a fight so quickly. It was harder to think on his feet when he already felt like he’d started out flatfooted.

 It appeared that Shulk had chosen his reply improperly, because Reyn started to redden in the face. He thrust his finger at Shulk angrily, stopping just short of poking him in the chest. “That. That _right there_. That’s _exactly_ what I’m talking about. This isn’t a lab, Shulk, it’s not rational, you can’t just…just…” He paused, hunting for the word, and after a second, exasperated, gave up. “… _whatever that is_ a solution out of it! We’re not doing some, some, some…” Reyn occasionally had trouble finding specific words when he was truly furious. That was troubling. “…some, experiment, where it’s all under control and you’re the boss!” He paused and took a deep breath, trying to get himself under control. The red lingered around the tops of his ears and around his hairline. Reyn seemed to steady himself, rubbing his hand across his broad, open face for a moment. When he spoke again, he seemed calmer. “Don’t _handle_ me, Shulk. This is a war. I could have died. And so could you.”

There was a quick, sudden pang in Shulk’s chest that he was at pains to keep off of his face. He didn’t feel as though he needed the reminder. Nevertheless, Shulk wasn’t angry; he didn’t have it in him. Instead he was sad, crushed by the weight of Reyn’s anger and disappointment. And he couldn’t find it in himself to disagree, either. Revenge was all well and good but if he’d had the time or the distance or the capability to plan what ought to happen, Shulk would never have chosen himself to lead the charge against the Mechon. Not in a million years. Not if he could have seen the future, he told himself grimly, savouring the bitter irony.

“I know that,” he told Reyn quietly, hoping to placate his friend. His hope was disappointed.

“That’s the problem,” Reyn told him. His voice was firm, still angry, but more controlled. He wasn’t yelling anymore. That, at least, felt like progress. However, just as suddenly, Reyn prodded him with that extended finger – not hard, but Shulk felt it – on his chest. “Here, you know that, maybe a little, right now.” He poked Shulk firmly in the chest again, then reached up and ever so gently rapped Shulk on the temple with his knuckles. “Not here. You feel bad now, and that’s fine, I guess, but it don’t mean nothing, not in the long run.”

Shulk exhaled slowly through his nose. “I won’t let it happen again, Reyn,” he told him, trying to sound as definite as the dull ache in his chest made him feel. “But it has to be me,” he pointed out, gently. “The Monado chose me, or something. If I could give it to you…” He trailed off.

“I don’t _want_ the Monado,” Reyn said. The anger was mostly gone from his voice now. Now, he just sounded defeated. “I want to feel like we have each other’s backs.” He looked away from Shulk and stared across the water. “Fiora asked me to look after you and protect you, but I can’t do that if you’re not also trying to look out for me. We got lucky in the cave, and luck’s fine as far as it goes, but it only goes so far, right?” He shook his shaggy head. “We need to be a team.” He turned and looked at Shulk again. “And that means you need to learn to start thinking like a soldier, ‘cause I’m sure as hell not going to wake up tomorrow thinking like a scientist.” Reyn grinned crookedly, just for a second, and Shulk felt something in his chest uncoil, just a little bit. They were getting through it. Shulk let himself smile back at Reyn.

“Okay,” he said, grabbing onto the solution that Reyn had offered. “How do I start thinking like a soldier?”

Reyn nodded. His expression was solemn and thoughtful, which was unusual. And a little unnerving. “I’ll teach you, that’s how. You’re in Reyn’s lab now.” He paused, drumming his fingertips on the ground. “We’ll pitch camp earlier in the day from now on, spend a couple of hours running drills. Battle’s got a lingo, Shulk, and I’ll teach it to you. You’ve got a spot in a fight, and it’s right behind me; gotta learn to stay there. Gaur’s a dangerous place, too, so we’ll get plenty of chances to practice fighting as a unit. We’ll do drills on battlefield communications, adaptation, use of terrain…” He started ticking off items on his fingers. Then he grinned more broadly and nudged Shulk with his shoulder. “You’ll always be a scrawny little runt, Shulk, but at least you’ll be a scrawny little runt who knows how not to get underfoot.”

Shulk laughed, genuinely, and pushed back at Reyn playfully. The knot in his chest completely uncoiled and he felt himself relax. Solution found. “And I promise that I’ll make sure to tell you about any visions I have. All right?” _That should just about take care of everything._

Reyn suddenly got quiet, the grin dropping off of his face suddenly. He gave Shulk a long, appraising look again. “Yeah,” he said, but he sounded pensive. The knot started to retie itself a little and Shulk frowned, then reassuringly placed his hand on Reyn’s leg.

“I promise. I don’t ever want anything like that to happen again, all right? If I have any visions, you’ll be the first person I tell. All right?” Reyn nodded, but his grin didn’t return. “Reyn, I promised. All right? What’s wrong?”

“Right here,” Reyn said quietly, and poked Shulk on the chest again. “But not here.” Again the rapping on the temples. There was a long, confused silence before Reyn spoke again. “You want me to teach you how to think like a soldier, right?”

The knot was back now. Shulk was completely lost, with no idea what had changed the mood between them so quickly. Reyn had gone from angry to pleased to remorseful, and ‘remorseful’ was almost more concerning on Reyn because Shulk saw it on him so rarely. “Yes,” he said, quietly, unsure.

“Part of thinking like a soldier is about discipline,” Reyn told Shulk seriously. “And you don’t have any. Not like a soldier ought to, anyhow.”  
                 
“But that’s what the drills and the practices are for, right?”  
  
“Not discipline like… _discipline_ discipline,” Reyn replied, unhelpfully. Seeing Shulk’s confusion written on his face, Reyn went on, trying to explain. “You clean your weapon real nice and keep your gear in good shape, that’s _discipline_ discipline. But there’s also discipline when you step out of line.”  
                 
It took Shulk a moment to process what Reyn was telling him, and when he understood it, the knot wrenched tighter in his chest even as a nervous laugh forced its way out from between his’s lips. “You want to…to punish me?” he told Reyn, incredulously. _He has to be joking_. “What would that even look like? You want to be Vangarre? Punch me in the face?”  
                 
Reyn shook his head. “No, but that’s not all old Square-stache would do if he thought someone under his command needed disciplining. He’d also make you run laps around the Colony, or do a few hundred push-ups, or clean the latrines.”  
                 
“Well, we don’t have any latrines out here,” Shulk pointed out. “And I’ve never done a push-up in my life. I’ll run around the plateau if that will make you feel better, but I promise you I won’t be able to move in the morning.”  
                 
“Yeah.” Reyn paused and leaned back, looking away from Shulk and up at the sky again. “I guess it wouldn’t work out. You’re right.”

 “Okay,” Shulk said, nervously, eager to move past the awkward moment. “So we’ll do like you said, and I promise I’ll tell you about any visions, and that’ll be have to be good enough. All right?”

There was a long, tense silence, Shulk watching Reyn carefully, Reyn still leaning back on his elbows, watching the moon. The quiet was intolerable, but Shulk waited, patiently, for Reyn to agree with him.

“No,” Reyn said. “It’s not good enough.”

Shulk sighed and felt his shoulders slump. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Reyn. I’m not one of Vangarre’s recruits, and we’re not in the Colony. I mean, you said it yourself, this is a war. I can’t do push-ups until my arms fall off or run around until I can’t move the next day.”

“No,” Reyn said thoughtfully, still not looking at Shulk. “No, you can’t.” There was another long pause, then Reyn turned and looked at Shulk solemnly. “But I know what Dunban would do if _he_ were here.”

Shulk’s stomach did a backflip and be blinked in surprise. A sudden chill washed over him as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead and forearms. The colour, he was sure, had drained right out of his face. “How…how did you know about that?”  
  
“You’re joking, right?” Reyn asked, looking skeptical. “You’ve got quite a pair of lungs on you, sometimes. ‘Specially when Dunban didn’t think you were,” and here he affected Dunban’s patrician tones, “’applying yourself, Shulk’.”  
                 
Shulk glanced away, nonplussed. His face felt hot and red, and his ears were burning. Dunban has sworn never to tell anyone what had gone on during their lessons, and he was sure that Dunban wouldn’t have broken his word. But it was true that he hadn’t always managed to be quiet during the times that Dunban had felt he was in need of correction. He’d always assumed – and tried to avoid thinking about the fact that – Fiora had known, and had simply scrupulously never brought it up, but…Reyn too?  
                 
“So?” Reyn prompted, and Shulk whipped his head back around to stare at him, eyes wide.  
                 
“You _must_ be joking!”  
                 
“Am not,” Reyn told him, firmly, nodding his head. “Actually, it’s a perfect solution. You’d learn your lesson, and you might be a bit uncomfortable in the morning, but you’d still be able to move and fight. I think it’s a great idea.”  
                 
“A bit uncomfortable?” Shulk blinked. Part of him was still astonished to discover that this conversation was even taking place. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to meet Reyn’s eyes again, he was so humiliated. “I have to say, Reyn, I don’t really think I share your enthusiasm for this plan.”  
                 
Reyn frowned, still staring at Shulk, looking thoughtful. It was unnerving to see him so pensive. “So that’s a no, then, is it?”  
                 
Shulk looked away again. He couldn’t help himself. This was awful: Reyn’s insistence on his new plan, Shulk’s humiliation at discovering that what he’d thought was a secret was in fact reasonably common knowledge, the quiet insistence radiating off of his friend that he voluntarily subject himself to that very thing. The solution that had seemed so close at hand now seemed very far off indeed, and getting farther away by the moment. It wasn’t that he wasn’t open to making it up to Reyn _somehow_ , but not like _that_. _No_.  
                 
“Yeah, Reyn,” he replied, “it’s a no. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let you spank me. I’m not sure why you think I’d be all right with that.”  
                 
Reyn’s face fell, then he frowned. His shoulders set. “I guess I thought you would because I figured you meant that stuff you said.” Scooping up the guarder, Reyn got to his feet. This was bad. Shulk could tell from the set of his jaw, the tenseness in his shoulders, that Reyn was getting back to angry very quickly, so he scrambled to his feet as well, desperate to try to salvage the situation.  
                 
“I _did_ mean what I said,” he insisted, reaching out and setting his hand on Reyn’s bicep as he turned to walk away, back towards the camp. “I did. But you can’t really expect me to subject myself to that…not with _you_.  You’re my best friend, Reyn.”  
                 
With angry indifference, Reyn shrugged off Shulk’s hand. “Damn right. S’exactly why you ought to let me. What? You think I’d take advantage? You don’t think you’d be safe with me?” He shook his head, angry again. “Besides, wouldn’t be you _subjecting_ yourself to anything. It’d be you just taking what you’re due, what you just agreed with me that you _needed_.” Reyn paused, the silence tense and expectant between them.

Shulk knew what was expected of him, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. He felt sick to his stomach, confused, upset, disoriented. More to the point, he felt unwilling. Desperate to say something, he opened his mouth, realized he had nothing to offer Reyn that would make him happy, and shut it again, lamely.

Reyn shook his head, angrily, and the expression on his face was one that Shulk wasn’t used to seeing there: disgust. Shulk opened his mouth again, but all that came out was a hurt, baffled stammering. And then Reyn, with a dismissive wave of his hand, turned and began to stalk across the plateau, still shaking his head angrily as he walked away.

Left behind, standing at the edge of the precipice, Shulk was at a loss, and worse, too upset and hurt by Reyn’s rejection of him to think clearly or even chase after him. He felt a little dizzy, light-headed with distress and exhaustion. Reyn had never spoke to him that way before, never looked at him that way before, ever. The entire plateau, their entire conversation, had taken on a weird, dream-like quality, and he was barely even sure what was happening was real.

Reyn wasn’t just walking away, he was _abandoning_ him, giving up on his ideas of what it would be like to be with Shulk as partners, as fellow adventurers, as fellow warriors. And Shulk had disappointed him so thoroughly that he was already giving up on the idea, before they’d even made it as far as Colony 6.  
  
Shulk had already lost Fiora, and now he was losing Reyn, too, not just as a partner but even, he was worried, as a friend. And he wasn’t, he knew, much of anything or anyone without at least one of them. The only reason he was even standing there now was because of the Monado, not because of anything special about him, Shulk, personally. He still wasn’t crying, but he wanted to be, startled by the speed with which everything seemed to be falling apart.  
  
But he was a fixer. And a maker of things.  
  
“Reyn…” he said, so softly that Reyn didn’t hear him. Shulk’s throat was dry. “Reyn,” he repeated louder, and Reyn paused, halfway back to camp, half-turning to look at him. In the moonlight, Shulk noticed, if not for the first time then in a fundamentally different way, how big around Reyn’s arms were, the subtle shifting of muscle under skin. He swallowed hard, and Reyn looked at him expectantly.  
  
Reyn was staring right at him.  
__  
A fixer. A maker of things.  
  
“Okay,” Shulk said, loud enough so that he was sure Reyn could hear him. _Why is my throat so dry?_ “Okay.”  
  
Reyn raised his eyebrows. He still looked skeptical. “Yeah?” Shulk nodded once, and then Reyn nodded back, and began walking back towards him across the plateau. _Oh_ , Shulk remembered thinking later, as Reyn took him by the arm, _this is actually happening_. Everything still felt unreal. Reyn gripped him firmly but not painfully by the upper arm, and then they were walking together, back towards the camp and the warm orange circle of firelight.  
  
“Reyn?” Shulk asked, his voice sounding quiet and far away. His stomach was fluttering madly, his heart leaping in his chest. “Reyn? Have you ever, you know…done this before?”  
  
“No,” Reyn conceded, with a diffident shrug which did nothing to settle Shulk’s jangling nerves. “But I’ve been through it. Not for a long time, but, I mean, I know the…the _routine_.”  
__  
Great.  
  
There was a big flat rock just outside the cave entrance, near where they’d dug their fire pit, because it provided as good a landmark as any to pitch their camp around and even gave them a place to sit near the fire. Still leading Shulk by the arm, Reyn sat down on the rock and pulled Shulk to stand in front, facing him. Sitting down Reyn was still big, his head level with Shulk’s chest, and for the first time Shulk really _noticed_ his size, and was intimidated by it.

Shulk could barely conceive that this was happening. He knew it was cliché, but he half expected to wake up at any moment. Worse, he hated that it was happening, hated that he felt so nervous, so sick to his stomach, so raw and so helpless. He’d never relished Dunban’s correction, either, but Dunban at least hadn’t been his friend, his best friend. He’d admired Dunban, sure, and as Fiora’s brother they’d had a unique relationship, unique enough that in spite of Shulk’s desires the occasional – or more than occasional - punishment had become part of that relationship, something assumed and understood. But Shulk and Reyn had known each other forever, or as good as, and there had never been anything like…like this. He hated it. _Hated_ it. Shulk suddenly felt diminished in comparison to Reyn, small and helpless, in over his head.  
                 
Which was at least part of the point, he supposed.  
                 
Then Reyn reached for Shulk’s shirt and started to lift it up over his head. Startled, Shulk blinked and instinctively grabbed at the hem of the shirt in front, pushing it down even as Reyn pulled it up. Reyn glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised, still gripping the bottom hem of Shulk’s shirt, a shadow of frustration flickering about his eyes. “What?” he asked, tersely.  
                 
“This isn’t…” … _how Dunban would do it_. Dunban had never liked to make a big show out of Shulk’s spankings, simply pulling down his pants and bending him over whatever happened to be nearby. The idea of stripping down completely, which Reyn seemed to have in mind, was new, and deeply alarming. It wasn’t that he and Reyn had never seen each other naked – they’d known each other too long and from too young an age to not have – but Reyn had always been much, much more casual about nudity than Shulk, and anyway Shulk couldn’t remember a single time when one of them had been naked and the other hadn’t. Least of all a situation where the dressed one had been undressing the other.

It was all so strange, all so alien. He wanted to take it back, pull away, forget the whole thing. But he saw the flicker of anger on Reyn’s face, felt the sting of Reyn turning his back and walking away from him again, and suddenly the complaint that this is not how _Dunban_ would have spanked him just seemed to make the entire situation even more ridiculous and alarming than it already was. He wasn’t going to wind up with much dignity left after this was over, he was sure, whether or not he got to keep his shirt on. And he couldn’t stand the thought of Reyn walking away from him again.  
                 
“Well?” Reyn repeated, still holding Shulk’s shirt.  
                 
Shulk took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second, forcing his shoulders to relax, his spine to loosen. When he opened his eyes, he felt a little bit better, even if just for a second. “Let me take off my jacket first,” he said quietly, doing his best not to make it sound like a plea. After a moment, Reyn nodded and let go of Shulk’s shirt.  
                 
Turning away from his towards the fire, Shulk took another deep breath. Frequent deep breaths were helping. Not looking at Reyn while he took off his clothes – even just his jacket – helped too. Shulk slipped his jacket off of his shoulders and folded it carefully, setting it on the ground. After a second, he knelt down and removed first his left shoe, then his right, and his socks, as much to delay the apparently inevitable as to demonstrate his willingness to be helpful to Reyn. The grass was cool and tickled his bare feet as he turned back to where Reyn was sitting on the rock, waiting.

Shulk swallowed hard, closed his eyes for another second – Reyn didn’t seem to mind – and stepped forward again. Without speaking, Reyn took the hem of the shirt again and began to raise it, standing as he lifted it above Shulk’s stomach, his chest. Shulk raised his hands robotically, somehow managing to feel both frightened and numb, and in one swift motion Reyn had the shirt off, and the warm breeze was playing across Shulk’s bare skin, stiffening his nipples and raising gooseflesh on his upper body. He shivered.  
                 
And then Reyn’s hands were at his waist, undoing Shulk’s pants and opening them, revealing the tight gray smallclothes he wore beneath. Shulk closed his eyes and took another deep breath, but it was less helpful than it had been, since he could still feel Reyn’s fingers slipping inside the waist of his pants – inside the waist of his shorts – and in one smooth movement, pulling both down to his ankles. Another deep breath. His face grew hot, then his ears, then his neck, then his shoulders.  
                 
Mechanically, with Reyn’s prompting, Shulk lifted his right foot, then his left, so Reyn could strip the last, lingering trace of Shulk’s dignity off of his ankles. Eyes still closed, Shulk heard the rustle of Reyn setting his pants and his underwear down on the rock next to him. Then Shulk jerked, startled, as he felt Reyn’s two large hands settle on Shulk’s bare hips, his touch warm and surprising. The firmness of Reyn’s grip meant that even when Shulk squirmed in surprise at the shockingly intimate touch, he didn’t get anywhere.  
                 
It was time to open his eyes, Shulk decided. Not possible any longer to pretend he wasn’t standing, completely nude, in front of his oldest and best friend, waiting for his backside to be beaten. This was awful. He’d never be able to look Reyn in the eyes again. After this, why would Reyn ever want him to? He needed to open his eyes. He couldn’t. They were glued shut. There was no way he could be expected to stand naked in front of Reyn, open his eyes, and see Reyn seeing him. _Open your damn eyes!_

“Shulk.”

He opened his eyes.

Between the firelight and the moon, the plateau was well lit in cold blue light cut through with knife-slashes of red and yellow cast by the fire. Facing the flame, the shadows of the fire played here and there off of Reyn’s face, alternately hiding and exposing the features of his face. With his back to the fire and lit only by the moonlight, Shulk was confident he enjoyed no such concealment; every inch of his naked front was exposed to Reyn’s gaze. And Reyn was, Shulk saw as he opened his eyes, gazing, with his hands set on Shulk’s hips as if to hold him steady while Reyn’s eyes briefly explored his friend’s body.  
                 
Something had happened, Shulk realized, in the last five minutes, that would change their friendship forever. He squirmed a bit beneath Reyn’s hands. “Reyn?” he asked, pleadingly. He wasn’t sure what it was he was pleading for.  
                 
Reyn glanced up from Shulk’s nudity to his eyes and grinned at him as if this were the most natural thing in the world. “You’re so pale. You gotta get out of the lab more, Shulk.”  
                 
Suddenly offended, Shulk frowned and tried to pull away, but Reyn held him close with the hands on his hips. Unable to stand it anymore, Shulk clapped his hands over his cock, hiding it from view. It was one thing to agree to let Reyn spank him, for the good of the mission; it was another to just stand there nude while Reyn stared at him and cracked jokes about his complexion. “Don’t make fun of me!” he snapped at Reyn, trying to sound authoritative, as though he wasn’t stark naked and helpless in Reyn’s grasp. At this point, whatever was going to happen was going to happen, but he didn’t have to be mocked.  
                 
Reyn looked hurt. Again, for just a second, his eyes explored Shulk’s body, then met his eyes again. He looked confused. “I’m not. You _are_ pale.”  
                 
“Well, I’m not planning to walk around naked, am I?” Shulk sputtered, still covering himself with both hands.  
                 
Reyn thought about that for a second, then nodded. “Guess so. Still wouldn’t hurt you to get some sun, though. Just making an observation.”  
                 
Reyn’s conversational tone left Shulk feeling even more disoriented and exposed. It occurred to Shulk that while his own world was collapsing around his ears, while his head was spinning with humiliation and his stomach flipping with confusion, what was happening now actually meant very little to Reyn, at least in terms of the long-term state of their friendship. Reyn had decided Shulk needed to be spanked, and so he was going to do it…but that was all. Certainly it wasn’t earth-shaking enough to preclude Reyn from going on – _again_ – about how much time Shulk spent in the lab. In spite of himself, it actually made Shulk feel a little better about the whole awful mess; somehow, the off-handedness of Reyn’s observation made Shulk feel as if, once this was all over, everything would be fine between them. Resolved. He actually felt some of the tension and fear seep out of his body, at that.  
                 
Of course, it still didn’t change the fact that he had no clothes on and Reyn had every intention of giving him a spanking. “May…” Shulk paused and took another deep breath, closed his eyes for three seconds – _one, two three_ \- and then opened them again. “I’d really just like to get this over with, Reyn, okay? Please?”  
                 
Reyn’s eyes seemed to have strayed a little bit while Shulk was collecting himself, but when Shulk spoke – plead to be spanked, for that matter – his eyes returned to Shulk. “Right,” Reyn said authoritatively. “Fair enough.” Then, using his hands on Shulk’s bare hips to guide him, Reyn moved Shulk over to his side.  
                 
Shulk experienced another moment of disorientation as he tried to figure out what Reyn was positioning him for, and his stomach dropped again when he realized Reyn intended to put him across his lap, like a child. For a second he tried to resist, pull away – _this isn_ _’_ _t how Dunban would do it_ – before realizing there was no point. This was happening; being put across Reyn’s lap as opposed to bent over a rock wouldn’t change the fact of getting a spanking from him. In context one barely seemed worse than the other, and _not_ quibbling about it seemed like the quickest route to getting through this and having his underwear returned to him.  
                 
So Shulk allowed himself to be guided, and when prompted by Reyn’s hands on his hips, lay meekly across his best friend’s lap, toes on the ground, hands on the dirt, head down, pale backside presented to Reyn like an offering. He was suddenly, agonizingly aware that his flaccid cock was pressed against Reyn’s leg, thankfully, Shulk supposed, against the fabric of Reyn’s trousers and not against bare skin. He squirmed around a little, shifting his hips, trying to find a way to lie comfortably across Reyn’s knees. His ability to find a comfortable way to lie there was limited since the only thing hiding his cock from Reyn was the fact that he was keeping his legs together; if he’d spread his legs, he could probably have found a better position, but…  
                 
Reyn’s hand settled on Shulk’s bare, upturned bottom and all thoughts of comfort were banished from Shulk’s mind. Reyn’s hand was big, large enough to cover a significant chunk of Shulk’s backside, and Shulk could feel the roughness of the skin, the hardness of the callouses. The hand wasn’t completely still, either, Reyn was moving his hand a little, rubbing it across Shulk’s skin, squeezing here and there, a little bit. Shulk could feel Reyn’s fingertips on one of the most private areas of his body, exploring, each like a little flame on his skin.  
                 
His head was spinning again. In spite of himself, he squirmed a bit under Reyn’s hand, shifting his hips, unable to sit still. It was too uncomfortable, too strange, too humiliating, too…too _weird_. For just a second he tried to find the purchase required with his toes and the palms of his hands to straighten up, get _off_ Reyn’s lap, retrieve his underwear and whatever of his dignity he could salvage, just walk away and call the whole thing off, and oh, good, Reyn must have also realized that this was too strange and too bizarre to go through with, because he’d taken his hand, blessedly, off of Shulk’s bare bottom, and…  
                 
Then Reyn hit him for the first time. _Hard_. That big, strong hand, came back down to right where it had started, landing – smack! – across the center of Shulk’s bottom with a crack of skin-upon-skin so loud that Shulk was sure it could be heard all the way back in Colony 9. Reyn’s hand felt like it was made of iron, and it made contact with Shulk’s backside with all the force in his powerful arms. Shulk’s spine stiffened at the sudden shock of pain, and his bare legs kicked out futilely. He heard himself yelp out in pain and surprise. And worse, just as Shulk was starting to process what had happened, Reyn spanked him again, just as hard, in the same spot, and again, and again…  
                 
Dunban had been careful, methodical, when he’d spanked Shulk. He would start out slow, warming Shulk up, picking up both force and speed as the punishment carried on. And he’d move around, work everything from the top of Shulk’s bottom to his upper thighs, covering everything equally. It had been unpleasant, for sure, but never overwhelming.  
                 
But Reyn…Reyn had never done this before. Reyn was giving it all that he had, hard and fast, and not moving around, just the rhythmic repetition of hard, fast blows onto the center of Shulk’s bottom or pauses. Caught off guard by the first blow, Shulk spent the first few moments of his spanking desperately trying to catch his breath as Reyn rained blow after painful blow down onto Shulk’s bare bottom, while beneath his hand Shulk squirmed and bucked and cried out in shock and pain.  
               

The only change Reyn made as he worked was to plant his left hand – the one that was currently not raining down blows on Shulk’s bottom – into the small of Shulk’s back, pressing down firmly, to keep him in place. “Reyn…Reyn!” Shulk tried to gasp out between blows, but each time Reyn’s hand connected with his backside, whatever Shulk had been planning to say turned into a plaintive, pained cry. He needed to ask Reyn to wait, stop, slow down, give him a moment to process what was going on…but he could barely speak.  
                 
His eyes were filling with tears, and Shulk knew that in a few moments he’d be crying, probably too hard to be able to communicate anything to Reyn. Desperate, he flung his right arm backwards, fingers splayed out, to try and cover his bottom, and Reyn, to his credit, managed not to hit Shulk’s out-flung hand. Through his own heaving breaths, Shulk heard Reyn click his tongue, and then a firm hand closed around his wrist. Gently – but firmly – Reyn began to move Shulk’s hand out of the way.  
                 
Hot, humiliated tears were spilling down Shulk’s cheeks. His backside was throbbing where Reyn was hitting him, and he could already tell that he didn’t have much endurance for the kind of spanking Reyn was giving him. In a few minutes he’d be a sobbing wreck. The pain was intense, all the more so for Reyn focusing only on the same part of his bottom over and over again, worse than when Dunban had spanked him. Shulk squirmed around weakly, kicking his legs, taking deep breaths, as Reyn moved Shulk’s wrist into the small of his back where it would be out of the way. Any concerns about his cock pressed against Reyn’s legs or the importance of keeping his legs closed were forgotten. If he could just catch his breath, get his crying under control, he could explain to Reyn what he was doing wrong…  
                 
“Reyn,” Shulk gasped. “Wait…wait a second…” Implacable, Reyn transferred his grip on Shulk’s wrist from the right hand to the left. In a second or two he’d be free to start spanking Shulk again. “I need…I need a minute,” Shulk gasped out. He tasted the salt of his own tears on his lips. He could sense Reyn’s hand raising again over his bottom. “Reyn! Please!”  
                 
The hand came down, Shulk bucked hard on his friend’s lap, cried out in pain, and that was it for communication for the duration. With every blow Shulk struggled and cried out, his bare legs kicking out uselessly at the air and his one free hand scrabbling for purchase in the dirt. Between his left arm being restrained in the small of his back, and his awkward position jack-knifed over Reyn’s lap, he had no leverage to move; he was helpless, and the only time his body managed to move was when Reyn spanked him and he jerked forward with the impact.  
                 
The pain of the fast, hard, relentless spanking drove most thoughts out of Shulk’s head. After a few minutes he was too hurt and too shocked and too upset to even be able to clearly remember why this was happening, how he had wound up in this position. At first Shulk managed to feel angry – enraged, even – at the cavalier way Reyn was treating him, at the way Reyn had ignored his pleas and was even now ignoring his cries, his tears, his struggling, but before long even that was driven out of him and Shulk was overcome by wave after wave of pain and regret. His yelps and cries turned to choked sobs, and then eventually full-on, shoulder-shaking bawling, as Reyn continued to beat him.  
                 
Shulk lost all sense of time and space as he lay across Reyn’s knee. Gradually, from struggles and from sobbing, he wore himself out, and he felt his body go limp. After that he simply lay, boneless, over Reyn’s knee, sobbing loudly as blow after crashing blow connected with his unprotected backside. Shulk’s bottom – at least the wide band across the center where Reyn was still spanking him – felt scorched, and Shulk could tell he was starting to go numb. That would be a blessing, after a fashion. All the fight had gone out of him, so he simply laid limp on Reyn’s knees, sobbing inconsolably, his naked body jerking with each fresh blow to his bottom.  
                 
After it was over – hours, days, _years_ later, based on the throbbing of Shulk’s bottom – it took Shulk a few minutes to realize he wasn’t being hit any more. For what felt like an aeon Shulk simply lay limply over his best friend’s lap, bottom still upturned, sobbing loudly. Reyn had released his hand, Shulk realized, and lifting both to his face, he bawled, alternately covering his face for shame and desperately pawing at the dampness of his eyes and his cheeks. Reyn gave him a few minutes, it seemed, to try to calm down, but Shulk was still sobbing, slender shoulders shaking, when Reyn began to help him to his feet.  
                 
As soon as Reyn placed Shulk unsteadily on his own two legs, Shulk’s hands flew to his punished backside, cupping and rubbing at his bottom to try to alleviate the pain. The wide band across the center where Reyn had beaten him so relentlessly felt hot, scorching, to the touch, and Shulk’s long experience of being spanked led him to believe he might have bruises in the morning. His eyes were still too flooded with tears to see Reyn as anything more than a big, imposing blur in front of him, which helped a little, actually. Naked, sobbing, desperately rubbing at his spanked bottom as he stood in front of his friend, it helped to not be able to see Reyn clearly.  
                 
There were hands on Shulk’s shoulders, and in spite of himself he flinched, felt himself start to cry harder. At least this time he had the air in his lungs to speak. “No,” he whimpered, and his voice sounded far-away, plaintive, pathetic. “I can’t…I can’t take any more, Reyn…” He heard a warm chuckle and the hands on his shoulders began to guide him on unsteady, coltish legs, towards the tent they’d set up earlier.           

“Naw,” Reyn told him, not ungently, “no more. Just thought you might want to lie down.” Shulk nodded weakly, a wave of relief rushing over him, as Reyn lifted the tent flap and guided him inside, then drew back Shulk’s bedroll so he could climb in.               

Shulk found himself hesitating suddenly, even though more than almost anything in the world he wanted to climb into the bedroll, lie on his side, cover his nudity, and put the entire miserable evening behind him. His spankings from Dunban had always been, in their way, perfunctory, quickly begun, long in the offing, then quickly ended with little or no discussion, and for a proud but chastened teenager eager to move on, that had been just fine for Shulk. Then. Now, however, he almost felt as if he needed something from Reyn, some validation, some acknowledgment of what he’d been through, and the fact that, now, everything was all right between them, like Reyn had said it would be. Shulk suddenly found himself imagining Reyn wrapping him up in the strong arms that he’d spanked him with, pulling him close, reassuring him that everything was all right. He needed that, suddenly, keenly.  
                 
He felt something new.  
                 
But instead Reyn simply bent him down, guiding his still-sobbing friend with one hand on his shoulder and another on his hip, down onto the bedroll, where Shulk lay on his side and curled himself up tightly as Reyn drew the covers over him. “Get some rest,” Reyn told him, straightening and moving to leave the tent. “Early morning tomorrow.”  
                 
Shulk nodded weakly. He could feel his sobs dying down to faint, plaintive cries. That would pass too, soon enough. He clutched the covers and drew them up to his neck, eyes screwed tightly shut. Outside he could hear Reyn putting out the fire, gathering up Shulk’s discarded clothes and their gear. Soon enough he’d bring the weapons and the supplies inside the tent, get undressed, and climb into his own bedroll. Reyn tended to fall asleep almost immediately; Shulk usually needed time to get his thoughts in order.  
                 
The spanking had been dreadful, all wrong, compared to what Shulk was accustomed to. There’d been no pacing, no warm-up, all too much, too fast, too hard. He didn’t think he could have faced another like that with much equanimity. Worse, the intensity of the spanking hadn’t given Shulk any time to reflect on why it was happening and how he’d failed himself, or Reyn; he hadn’t been able to focus on anything other than the pain. Dunban had been a lecturer, and there had been times Shulk had wished he’d simply shut up and spank, but at least it had kept everything firmly in perspective, reminded Shulk of why he was being punished. Reyn had been so relentless and so painful that some of his punishment had left Shulk angry or frightened instead of remorseful and regretful. No, Reyn’s technique definitely needed work.  
                 
Shulk gave his weary head a shake, and rubbed at his still damp eyes with one hand. No point worrying about that because it wasn’t going to happen again. He had a solution now; he’d fixed it. All he had to do was everything he’d promised to: accept and heed Reyn’s training, apply it in real combat situations, and also tell Reyn about any and all of his visions.  
                 
Going forward.  
                 
Indefinitely.  
                 
Flawlessly.  
                 
_No problem_. And that’s when he felt the rush of energy up his spine, the crackle of blue lightning across his vision, and he felt his body go stiff as the vision washed over him unbidden.  
                 
_cold wind on upturned skin rough bark under hips shame confusion pain of the lashing voice raised indistinct like underwater damp air sweet smell strange shimmering like fireflies whisper of the belt through the air as it was raised fresh whisper as it descended cry of pain_  
                 
and  
  
then  
                 
Gone.  
                 
Shulk gasped as the vision passed and left him where he had been, naked and crying, wrapped in his bedroll. He shuddered and took a moment to try and catch his breath, shed the chills that shook his body after every vision. It took a few moments before he was able to process what he’d seen.

_No. No, no, no!_


End file.
